fear
by diancier
Summary: "Clove! Don't close your eyes!" Faintly, she can still hear him talking to her and feels him smoothing her hair back. And she figures that this isn't too bad of a way to die. Cato/Clove


"Follow her! Now!" she snaps at him, turning to take off in the opposite direction when he grabs her wrist so tightly she almost thinks it will break.

"Don't tell me what to do, Clove," he growls just as she wrenches her arm out of his grip and sprints after the District 12 girl, dark hair whipping around as she turns. She lets a knife fly towards District 12, but the other girl easily deflects it off of her bow and Clove growls in frustration. She glances back over her shoulder just to make sure Cato is following District 5 just as District 12 lets her arrow fly. Luckily, Clove's reflexes are as good as they can get and she moves just in time to avoid anything fatal, although the arrow does catch her in the arm. She pauses only long enough to pull it out and glance at the damage before sprinting after District 12, who has just grabbed the very small backpack with the 12 on it. Clove's next knife cuts a gash in District 12's forehead and, disoriented, she lets her arrow fly at a point several feet to Clove's left. Before she can try to run, Clove has tackled her to the ground.

"Where's your boyfriend, District Twelve?" Clove asks in a taunting voice. "Still hanging on?"

"He's out there now," she growls, "Hunting Cato. Peeta!" The last word she screams and Clove frantically rams her hand down on her windpipe, looking around in every direction for a sign of the second District 12 tribute. But he isn't there.

"Liar." She grins in the sadistic and terrifying way she's known for. "He's nearly dead. Cato knows where he cut him." _At least he _says_ he does_, she thinks drily. "You've probably got him strapped up in some tree while you try to keep his heart going. What's in the pretty little backpack? That medicine for Lover Boy? Too bad he'll never get it." Carefully, she pulls out a ornamental looking dagger. She turns to District 12 and almost laughs at her expression. "I promised Cato if he let me have you, I'd give the audience a good show."

District 12 is thrashing around now, but she's emaciated and probably doesn't get very many decent meals back home and Clove can easily hold her down.

"Forget it, District Twelve. We're going to kill you. Just like we did you pathetic little ally… what was her name? The one who hopped around in the trees? Rue?" Pain flashes in District 12's eyes as well as something else; a kind of fury that Clove can't explain. "Well, first Rue, then you, and I think we'll just let nature take care of Lover Boy. How does that sound? Now, where to start?" She studies the girl's face in a mocking sort of way, as though deciding which angle would be best for a painting or sculpture.

District 12 bites at her hand, but Clove jerks her back by her hair. "I think… I think we'll start with your mouth." Clove lightly traces the outline of her lips, her own mouth tugging up into a smirk. "Yes, I don't think you'll have much use for your lips anymore. Want to blow Lover Boy on last kiss?" In a weak act of retaliation, District 12 spits a mouthful of blood and saliva into Clove's face. Her eyes narrow and her face flushes bright red with rage. "All right then. Let's get started."

District 12 tenses as the tip of Clove's knife opens a cut above her lip, but just as the knife starts to dig deeper, something yanks Clove upward by her hair and she screams before she can stop herself. Then she is hurled to the ground.

_She's ten years old again. Ten years old and already a trained killer._

"_Look at the little girl with her knives." It's Cato, who was twelve at the time. "Can you actually hit anything with those or do you just stand around looking pretty?"_

_One of his friends laughs. "My money's on the second one."_

_Her eyes narrow to slits. "Do you want to test that?" she asks, just itching to let a knife fly—knowing she shouldn't, but really, _really _wanting to. He laughs again, this laugh much more derisive, and she don't hesitate to prove him wrong._

_His eyes go wide in shock when her knife lodges itself in his shoulder. Not fatal, but it would hurt. And probably require some medical attention. Then he's yelling and panicking as he runs off, followed by Cato's other two friends. But not Cato._

_Cato grins and walks up to her, extending his hand. "I'm Cato."_

_She ignores his hand. "Clove."_

"_Well, Clove, I have a feeling we could be friends."_

"What'd you do to that little girl?" demands Thresh, face contorted in rage. "You kill her?"

Clove clambers backwards, green eyes wide with something she has never experienced before—fear. "No! No, it wasn't me!"

"_Hey! Watch where you're swinging that thing!" she snaps at him as his sword nearly takes her head off._

_He smirks. "I had to get your attention somehow, didn't I?"_

"You said her name. I heard you. You kill her?" His glare gets even more murderous. "You cut her up like you were going to cut up this girl here?"

Clove is shaking her head wildly. "No! No, I—" Then she sees the rock. And she screams. "Cato!" she shrieks. "Cato!"

_After their interviews, Clove had snuck into Cato's room and, silently, they both sat cross-legged on the carpeted floor, unable to sleep, but at a loss of words. _

"_If I die," Clove found herself saying, "I hope you win."_

_She saw Cato's mouth twitch upwards in a half-smile. "You, too," he replies._

She hears his response, but she knows he's too far away. And she can tell that Thresh does, too. "Clove!"

_I'm going to die_, is all her mind registers as Thresh brings his rock down on her temple and white-hot pain explodes throughout her head. Black dots dance in front of her eyes.

_The explosion is deafeningly loud and shakes the ground under their feet. Simultaneously, she and Cato both go racing back towards the Cornucopia._

_It's in ruins. Their supplies scattered and destroyed. Everything is gone._

_Cato is yelling and screaming, completely enraged. He is kicking the debris, swearing as loudly as he can. The he pauses, just as District 3 says the mines were all activated._

"_You fucking idiot," Cato growls. _

_The District 3 boy is shaking his head, yelling that it isn't his fault and trying to run when Cato catches him and in one swift movement snaps his neck, dropping the body to the ground, but still furious._

_Marvel doesn't dare to approach him, but Clove knows him—has seen his rages before. "Calm down," she says calmly, because that was the best way to deal with Cato when he was angry._

_He grits his teeth together, face still contorted in rage. "We need to go back to the woods. Find whoever the hell did this."_

"_They've got to be dead, though," Marvel speaks up. "I mean, how else would they have set off the mines?"_

_Clove nods and she can see Cato calming down a bit, his body relaxing._

"_Alright," he says gruffly. "But if they aren't in the sky tonight, we're going hunting."_

Thresh is talking to District 12 now, but Clove's mind can only focus on the horrible pain in her head.

Then Cato's kneeling beside her, casting his spear aside and begging her to stay with him. "Clove, can you hear me? Clove!" His voice is frantic and there's more fear in it than she's ever heard before.

"… _and this year, the Hunger Games may have _two _victors if the last remaining tributes are from the same district," finishes Claudius Templesmith._

_Clove turns to give Cato an incredulous look when he grabs her around the waist and crashes his lips down on hers. Her eyes go wide because that was absolutely not she was expecting, but, after a moment, she relaxes._

_They break apart and Clove is grinning. "We can both win," she says._

Her voice won't work, but her lips are mouthing his name over and over. After a minute of trying, she finally gets a word out. "Win."

"Clove, you're not dying."

_Yes, I am._

"Come on, just hold on."

_I'm dying, you idiot._

"Clove! Don't close your eyes!"

Faintly, she can still hear him talking to her and feels him smoothing her hair back. And she figures that this isn't too bad of a way to die.


End file.
